[Core] Some doubts on movement rates

[Valandil]

Hi everyone. After two years of reading Old School D&D blogs and forums, I finally decided to give a retroclone a shot. Of course, I chose S&W.

I love the simplicity of the game, but I think there is something I don't understand completly yet, and it's the movement rates the game uses. Unlike most of you, I haven't been playing D&D for the last 25 years, so please, bear with my stupid questions.

The first thing that I don't understand is why there are two different "Combat" movement rates, one for Indoors/Subterranean/City, and another for Outdoor Movement. What I mean is, why when the characters are in combat in the plains, they move a lot faster than when they're fighting inside a dungeon or a building?

Another thing that I find odd are the movement rates in general. Like the "Running" rate, for example. If I'm reading it right, it says that an unencumbered human runs at 48 feet per minute (12 [base rate] x 4 [per round]). So, if a guy is fleeing away from a dragon, running for his life, he will only move 14 meters, 4 yards, in one minute? I know the game is not a simulation of real life, but that isn't even near the average for a human (that would be, give or take, 690 feet per minute for medium distances, if my calculations are right).

Thanks!

[tavis]

Delta's excellent blog has a lot of rigorous & intelligent work on this.

Check out the essay on matters of scale for movement rates, and indoor missile ballistics for the indoor/outdoor division.

[18 Spears]

You get two moves per turn so the running distance you listed would be doubled.

[Valandil]

Thank you guys for the replies

I just wanted to say that I decided to tweak the movement myself.

I decided to leave the indoor/outdoor division out, made combat rounds last 10 seconds instead of one minute, and left movement rates as follow:

Walking: Base Movement Rate x 4 (thus, an unencumbered human would walk at 48 feet per combat round, 280 feet per minute). If moving at this speed near an enemy (near=3 feet radius), characters suffer one "free attack" per enemy.

*The average walking speed for a healthy human is 260 feet per minute, so this isn't that far away from real life.

Running: base movement rate x 8 (thus, an unencumbered human would run at 96 feet per combat round, 580 per minute).

*The average running speed that I found was something around 690 feet per minute. 580 was the closest I could get while keeping it simple.

Combat Movement: As the Core Manual, 12 feet per round. At this speed, characters dont give away "free attacks" to nearby enemys (as long as they dont put themselves beetwen 6 orcs or something like that).

What do you think of this?

[Deleted]

Sept 14, 2010 22:21:15 GMT -6 Valandil said:

I haven't been playing D&D for the last 25 years, so please, bear with my stupid questions.

Now THAT is funny!

Simple questions often fuel week-long debates between lifetime D&D players. The only way to render any question stupid is to be afraid of asking it.

[verhaden]

Also remember that for indoor movement rate, the game assumes you're in a dank dungeon with crumbling walls, laden with armor, weapons, treasure, and only a torch or lantern to light your way through. You're encumbered, you can't see, there's debris everywhere, and it's dark as hell.

That said, I think they're tweaking movement rates for the Complete Rules.