'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

[Cantriped]

Heya all, I've been thinking about this idea for a while and finally decided to write it down and see what everyone else here thought.

One thing that has always annoyed me about the SPD mechanic is that as your number of actions increases, so does your movement rate. Now while this is fine for most games.

For heroic games it makes more sense to me for a character to have more actions without actually moving any faster, but I found no 'heroic' level variant for how SPD and movement rates were handled.

So without further Adu,

 

The Heroic-level Speed-Movement conversion:

Normal: Normally a characters Movement in x" is the maximum distance per phase. effectivly meaning that it is multiplied by their Speed.

Heroic Variant: The characters movement in x" is the maximum distance per Turn, and is divided among equally among the character's phases. (Thus a SPD 2 and SPD 4 character run exactly as fast, but the spd 4 character can do a lot more while moving, and is more maneuverable). To balance the dividend the x" of each of the character forms of movement whould be doubled (base 6" running/phase becomes base 12" running/turn).

Note: Because both Leaping and Swinging are essentially 'uncontroled' forms of movement once the initial movement is started, the origional values should be retained as the maximum distance that can be covered in a single 'leap'/'swing', though they may cover greater distances over the turn though multiple leaps.

Note: Teleport, for obvious reasons, would be dificult to adapt to this variant, as such it should either be handled normally, or if the variant is used the teleporter would effectivly remain phased-out until enough phases had past for him to have 'traveled' the x" between his starting location and destination. (as with jumping, the normal value should equal the maximum distance coverable in a single teleport.)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

Why not just purchase Extra Speed, Does not add to movement (-1/2)? Just asking.

[Cantriped]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

That would work too... well kinda, but Adjudicating limited versions of Speed tend to end up kind of cludgey. For example would the extra phases which he 'isn't moving' be dispersed between his normal phases, or would he be allowed to take his movement at the begining and then be stone still in later-phases... etc.

Anyway thats kind of a problem for any 'limited' verson of speed though, which is why I tried to avoid that route.

That aside I'm also somewhat interested to know if there are any glaring holes and issues that I might have overlooked in the wording of the variant?

[Killer Shrike]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

Actually, decoupling movement from SPD has been discussed at various points over the years.

 

The main problem w/ movement is that for sake of convenience all of a character's movement is resolved on their Phases, which gives the illusion that they are moving in stops and starts, but in reality they are supposed to be in constant motion, as indicated by accel and deccel.

 

In general, there's a trade off between realism and complexity.

 

The easiest "heroic" tweak I know of is to not worry about it during combat scenes, and just treat everyone as having a 2 SPD when moving on the ground out of combat.

 

Heightened circumstances and all that.

[Curufea]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

Ideally - everyone should move 1" every phase. They can only do things other than movement on their segments.

[Outsider]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

Speed 4 people will love it. They can move 8" a turn and get attacks every phase, whereas a speed 3 or 2 people with the same movement rate move only 6" a turn while attacking every phase.

 

 

Also... on the idea that SPD that provides no movement.. When does such a character move? Say he's speed 4, one of which provides no speed. Which one doesnt he move on?

[Cantriped]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

Actually the variant as written does more effective 'damage' to the character with 4 speed then with 2 speed, since they both Run/Leap/Fly at the same speed, and infact in oder to move at maximum velocity, the Speed 4 character would still be using all of his phases becuase their total movement would be divided equally among their phases...

 

Also, thanks for the comments KS, I'd actaully first thought about decoupling movement from phases (track it as veloctiy over the course of segments, but I wanted to keep the variant rule as simple and consise as possible. Thats also why I didn't decouple movement from speed entirely, you still have the illusionary Start/Stop of phases

[Blue Jogger]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

One of the simple variants we tried was a maximum move allowance for a phase. Another words, up to 20" of combat movement and 40" of non-combat movement. (Maximum heroic * 2 SPD)

 

The drawback was the faster characters ended up being "stuck" before the end of turn (if they were keeping track) which wasn't realistic.

 

The other variant was faster speed characters would buy down Running (5" Run is the sweet spot if you are using 1 END per 5" Running or fraction thereof, good for high speed characters with END problems). But then, they would end up either taking a full move on their first phase (running up to the bad guys) or more than likely take a half move of 3" and save a half phase for dodging ("Shoot him, he's fast!").

 

So, those variants usually didn't work out, so now we accept that higher speed characters are going to be ridiculously fast, and if they start doing that for out-of-combat movements (in heroic games) we check the END expended and verify that it is half of the REC (no LTE being burned). And unless they have a unusually impressive REC that limits them fairly effectively without it being a harsh rule. That's why 0 END on 3" Run is so useful, suddenly you can walk all day (non-combat) at roughly 4 MPH (at SPD 2).

 

So now, REC is my new favorite stat. Having 7 REC means being able to burn 4 END/turn effortlessly, in most heroic games that becomes much more heroic. "Aren't you tired?" "Are you kidding, I can do this ALL day!"

[Cantriped]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

That may be part of my problem, in most of the games I've played, END hasn't been something we've kept close track of, so I'm not really used to accounting for it that much.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

That would work too... well kinda' date=' but Adjudicating limited versions of Speed tend to end up kind of cludgey. For example would the extra phases which he 'isn't moving' be dispersed between his normal phases, or would he be allowed to take his movement at the begining and then be stone still in later-phases... etc.[/quote']

 

 

And I thought "Huh. That's an odd question, the answer is obvious!" USP covers this in depth, but the short version is, you (the GM) designate which phases are "movement" and which are combat - as KS said, you effectively decouple them. You could, in point, create two speeds, one for Movement (7, 12) and one for combat (the character's SPD) and then they could, in turn, buy them up independently. Might sound kludgey, but it makes plenty of sense.

[The Souljourner]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

There's two problems here - one, you're looking at a single phase as being comparable to any other phase. That's not exactly true. Think of each phase as just a fraction of a person's turn. The higher the person's speed, the smaller the fraction of that person's turn it is. So a speed 4 guy's phase is 1/4 of his turn, whereas a speed 2 guy's phase is half his turn. Forget about one phase = 1 second. Think one turn = 12 seconds and divide it by each guy's speed. Speed 2 guy spends 6 seconds per phase, speed 4 guy spends 3 seconds per phase.

 

So even though they may both move 6" per phase, the speed 4 guy is running twice as fast. I know that's not quite by the rules, but it works pretty well in concept and it's really the only way speed makes sense.

 

The other problem is that speed is multiplicative with the rest of your combat abilities and movement. the 10 points someone spends to go from speed 3 to 4 adds 33% to the amount he can move and attack during a round. That's a lot for 10 points.

 

I think I'd probably set a characteristic maxima of 3 SPD, and thus make people pay double to go above that. 20 points is a lot, but speed 4 versus speed 3 is a big difference.

 

-Nate

[Cantriped]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

Actually thats exactly why I don't like Speed multiplying movement rate. It seems to me that it would be more inkeeping with the heroic level of campaigns for a character to perhaps be more able to react to things happening in combat (aborting to dodge or block) and be generally more able to recover, counter-attack, and prepare attacks of their own, without automaticly becoming faster runners/swimmers/etc.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

I hate to harp, but this still sounds like you want to decouple movement from actions.

 

For example. Everyone has a SPD 2, as of right now. Done. You NOW want combat monsters to have better reaction time. They purchase two more SPD, "Only for Combat Actions, -1." Voila, done. They can only move on 7, 12 by rule, but can abort, get in extra attacks, etc.

[Cantriped]

Re: 'Heroic' Movement Rate Variant

 

I don't necessarially want to decouple movement from actions, in fact I want to avoid those kind of gludgy mechanics, I still want character to be able to move on any of their phases. However I wanted a rules variant that a decoupled movement from the multiplicative side effects of an increased Speed score.

Under the varient I presented a SPD 2 and a SPD 4 character both run just as fast unless one buys additional points of running. And to move at full velocity they are still giving up all of their phases.

 

I would also like to point out that Buying down your various forms of movement (I know, a novel concept) as SPD increases is another viable method of simulating this mechanic without a houserule. However I am really more interested right now in what people thought about the house rule itself as well.