River travel is faster, which means it has fewer random encounters. Only the risk from dedicated and fixed bandit ambushes remains the same.
Edit: Faster travel time also means faster patrols and thus more risk for the aforementioned organized bandits.
River travel
is faster than land travel, but that benefits profit, not safety.
Random encounters aren't actually a real thing. Bandits don't roam randomly hunting for people to attack, they pick a road or a village or a point and attack people who pass through.
Faster patrols doesn't mean better patrols. You want more patrols for better patrols.
Rivers are massively faster than land travel, river monsters are highly capped at the size they can get to. No krakkens for one thing.
Monster size is an excellent point. I don't tend to think of monsters as the primary threat to travel though, as AFAIK most animals won't chase a fleeing ship.
The difference is that a river and the area of land on either side from which threats can credibly attack riverine traffic is a relatively small area. It's easier to defend.
Furthermore, truly effective river pirates need boats, and the boats are themselves vulnerable to being destroyed. Once reports of river piracy spread, it's relatively straightforward to investigate and localize the boats responsible because they are, again, pinned down to the line of a river.
Rivers aren't inherently safe, but it's easier to secure a river than a road, and easier to secure either than to secure a "sea-lane" that can potentially be threatened by ships striking out from hundreds of miles away in enemy territory.
Roads have pretty much the same area limitations as a river though. Like, if you can park a dozen bandits fifty feet from a road, you can do the same for a river. You just need a slightly better scouting system.
Not necessarily. Effective river bandits need either a boat, or a way to stop the travelers. A narrow spot, or just one where ships have to slow to make a particular turn will do. And again, that's the same for ambushing caravans. You need something to slow them down, or speed yourself up.
I agree it's easier to secure a river or road than it is the sea, but I still don't think river travel is a massive boost in safety compared to current travel, and especially not compared to literally taking a ship from Marienburg to Tilea, which can stick close to the shore and only travels relatively organized territory.
But equally reliant on shelter to do the fixing, just going on threat variety at the moment I'd still take a caravan. This will change when ships that are fast enough or powerful enough to make a trip are developed of course.
Ships are though? Like, Bretonnia has basically 18th century ships. And sure, it helps a hell of a lot to be able to shelter in place while you fix stuff, but if you're in a fight, you can't fix caravans either so...
It's made very clear in multiple places in canon, that rivers are vastly safer than the roads. Beastmen can just walk out of the forest next to the rod, but aren't very good at boat building. Forest goblins aren't much better.
You can also travel much faster on a river.
I've been told this before, but never actually seen anything say that.
What's your source for these? From some quick googling these seem to have been invented for Total Warhammer.
Gambler's Armour is in 8th Edition. Heavy armour with a 6+ ward save. No reference to Ranald though, because it's a common magic item.
