Hexclock / Hexcrawl Movement

While playtesting the ruleset I'm working on I ran into some hiccups with overland movement rates. Frequent changes between terrain types caused my simplistic "3 hexes for plains, 2 for forests, etc" rules to not flow as nicely as I'd wish. The multipliers I was using could also combine a bit too extremely, and flat bonuses felt wrong at lower rates where mountains would proportionally benefit far more than plains, for example. Here's the system I came up with as a result - it has worked nicely in my tests thus far. It requires a bit of math though. Nothing hard, but fair warning in case math is especially difficult for you.

This is for 3-mile hexes. Cost is how much it costs to enter the hex, from a per-watch budget of 60. Hexes per watch given for ease of reference. A watch is four hours, and they can travel without penalty for two watches a day. 3 watches = Tired, 4 = Exhausted, 5+ = make Grit/Con checks at increasing penalty.

For each degree of ease, move one column to the right. For degrees of difficulty, move to the left.

Degrees of ease:

    Trail (+1), Road (+2)

    Tough Party - average base Grit 4/6/8 (+1/+2/+3), or avg Str/Con 12/14/16

    Fast Party - average Move 7/8/9 (+1/+2/+3), or avg Movement 40'/60'/80'

Degrees of difficulty:

    Hilly (-1), Mountainous (-2)

    Forested (-1), Dense Jungle (-2)

    Soggy [ex: heavy rain] (-1), Wet [frequent wading] (-2)

    Slow Party - average Move 4/3/2/1 (-1/-2/-3/-4), or avg Movement 20'/10'/-/-

The Party modifiers should be a one-time calculation at the beginning of a session - I don't intend on recalculating unless it changes drastically. I elected to use average instead of minimum to make it a bit easier on players, so a single dwarf won't significantly slow down a party. Minimum might be preferable to some though and would make the calculation unnecessary.

In my notes and on my GM map, I note the base travel cost for the region, rather than use the above scale each time.  If you need to find the actual time it takes to cross a hex, multiply the cost by four. I chose 60 as the budget because it allowed the hexes/watch to divide evenly, until very high move rates which should be quite uncommon, and larger numbers make the calculation slightly slower in my head.

To keep track of the running total, I've enjoyed using a little clock sketch and filling it in, though a list of numbers is probably just as easy:

I'm not being super strict on the totals. If they go over 60 but are less than 90, that's fine. If it's the first travel watch, that can roll into the next. If it's their last travel watch, I'll just say "you arrive in the late afternoon" etc. Note that I'm keeping this GM-facing (though not secret). I have general terrain estimates in the player rules, but I like to keep more intensive calculations on my plate if possible.

Examples:

    Normal party moves through plains (total of 20), plains (40), plains (60 = end of first watch), plains (20), hills (50), hills (80 = end of second watch, 20 over. They arrive "late afternoon")

    Extra buff (+2) party moves on trail (+1) through plains (total of 10), hills (22), hills (34), mountains (49), mountains (64 = end of first watch), then in heavy rain (-1) through mountains (24, including the 4 over from last watch), mountains (44), hills (59), and plains (71 = end of second watch, 11 over. Late afternoon).

    Slow (-1) party moves through dense forest (60 = end of first watch) and then it starts pouring. Moving another dense forest hex would cost them 90 at this point, so they'll have to either stay put or use up an extra watch getting in, which would be a total of 3 watches travelled, making them Tired.