Movement Modifiers - Combat & NCM

[Thia Halmades]

Hey Steve;

 

We were going over our conversion notes last night, and one of the PCs is playing a Half Sea-Ork Ninja build, who in d20 rules had a ... "Shadow Running" ability - it increased his running speed dramatically. We know in HERO that it isn't quite the same; it costs END, the calculations are slightly different.

 

We did the basic math: 10" Running, SPD 4, x2 (standard) NCM. Put his top speed at 29.5mph IIRC. So here's the question(s).

 

1. Questions of reasonability aside (he's officially faster than a riding horse, which seems absurd to me, but eh) when running at full clip in NCM, I know he spends END as though it were Combat Movement. What I don't know is when he recovers; I'm assuming "never" until he stops to rest. Confirm/deny?

 

2. One thing we searched high & low for was some sort of terrain modifier; in other words, we assumed that 29.5mph was under optimal conditions; he couldn't run that fast in a snow drift, quick sand, slippery slope uphill, mud, etc. But we saw no chart to modify that at all. I made a best guess based on common sense as to how terrain changes should affect movement, but if at all possible I would prefer a hard and fast ruling. Help?

 

Thanks as always,

 

~DEM

[Steve Long]

Re: Movement Modifiers - Combat & NCM

 

1. A character who’s moving non-stop (such as Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas chasing Orcs across Rohan, to take a literary example) gets Post-Segment 12 Recoveries. But that raises the question of why you’re bothering to track END at all outside of combat — going through every Phase of a long chase could get pretty tedious! For situations like that, the Long-Term Endurance rules often work better — or you can rely on your dramatic sense and just “wing it.”

 

2. There is no such chart. The HERO System rules don’t specifically subtract inches of movement for terrain in combat conditions — which is pretty much the only time you should be worrying about exactly how many inches someone’s moving. You might take a look at the Travel Table on FH 333 and adapt it, but it’s written for long-term travel, with speeds measured in KPH. OTOH, it sounds to me like that’s what you’re envisioning, if this guy is going to be running long distances.

 

Or, if you want to wait a couple months, you can see what The Ultimate Speedster has to say on the subject.