Movement&Distances

Discussion on playing Earthdawn. Experiences, stories, and questions related to being a player.
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Lursi
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Movement&Distances

Post by Lursi » Sun Apr 07, 2019 4:57 pm

I was wondering about movement rates and distances.

In the past, when an evil pirate was hunting p the ship my characters had checked into, Archer and spellcasters had big fun giving the enemy a taste of their skill as the range of their skills permitted this.

Now the Archer can still somehow bridge close to 100 m, the spell casters can “only” rely on spirits or elementals. ( both being a little reserved for mid-journeyman circles)

The movement in 6 seconds(time of a combat round) also seems a bit restricted

At least Me personally can run faster than 30m in 6seconds and I am far from being a magical hero.

Proposal:

Count a barsaivian Yard as 2 or 3m when any kind of creature or caracter movement or range is calculated.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Bonhumm
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Re: Movement&Distances

Post by Bonhumm » Sun Apr 07, 2019 7:57 pm

In my opinion, movement is the one thing 4th Edition broke.

Although I agree that movement rate in first and second edition was crazy and in need of nerfing, it was reduced by too much but this is not the only problem.

Fourth edition tried (and mostly succeeded) in simplifying the game mechanics by removing or replacing many rules by simpler ones but their attempt to do this to movement was, in my opinion, a bad idea. The fact that all member of any given race can run at the exact same speed no matter their DEX, STR, STA, height, weight or age is ridiculous. The simplification given by removing that single column from the Characteristics Table was certainly not worth this mess.



World record (Usain Bolt 2009): 10.43 meters/yards per round.
Non adept human (DEX value:10) First Edition: 8.33 meters/yards per round.
Adept human (DEX value:18) First Edition: 14.16 meters/yards per round.
ANY human (DEX: irrelevant) FOURTH Edition: 4.00 meters/yards per round.

For crying out loud, a human with DEX VALUE of ONE still run 25 yards per round in First Edition! So yes, movement in old editions was broken.

However: I don’t care if an Adept is magically powered, someone loaded with (on average) 50+ lbs of (unbalanced) gear, on ‘regular’ ground, wearing medieval shoes could not beat the current world record, especially not for several rounds in a row.

I would say that the 4th edition rule of 24 yards per round (full movement) would make sense for the AVERAGE (i.e. DEX:10), non-adept human. So, personally, I would use the old first edition table for movement but shift the values so that a STA value of 10 equal 25/13 yards, 11 equal 28/14 and so on.

Belenus
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Re: Movement&Distances

Post by Belenus » Sun Apr 07, 2019 9:01 pm

You already said so yourself: Usain Bolt was able to run this fast in absolute perfect condition.
Just once this day, perfect ground, shoes, clothes, no additional weight and even the perfect weather.

+ The speed restriction for characters is just meaned for situations where you need them.
If the character is running just for fun without any baggage or his sword at the belt swinging between his legs, he could probably run faster too where you just can have him to roll for dex.
But jumping over roots while looking backwards if the draco is catching up to him is something different (even so the adrenalin might help :lol: ).

And not each animal / creature has the exact same stats as others of their kind and must have different speed, attacks and other values..
If you start thinking like this, the whole system will become reaaaally messy and the gm has quite the problem rolling for an group of enemys.

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Mataxes
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Re: Movement&Distances

Post by Mataxes » Sun Apr 07, 2019 9:37 pm

The movement rate change actually first showed up in Third Edition -- the game switched to "hexes" as the default rate, to (as I recall) kind of go along with the battlemat style of play popular in D&D3/Pathfinder spaces at the time. The assumption was that 1 hex = 2 yards, and given the movement rates and such from ED1/Classic, they were all out of scale with your standard hex-mats. So a reduction of movement rate along with a shorter round was used to address that gameplay issue.

But in ED3 dwarfs have a movement rate of 5 (or 10 yards), elves a rate of 7 (or 14 yards). The values aren't anything "new" in ED4 (nor is the idea of all members of a race having the same rate).

Look... I understand the desire to try and simulate "real world" stuff. It's just not something that I'm, personally, overly concerned with when it comes to design philosophy.

The game is an engine for helping tell stories. But when the rubber meets the road, do the rules support that? For me, they do. And I'm not overly invested in making sure that the results "come out right" if we try to model Usian Bolt in the game engine. Because it's not a game about world-class sprinters.

I realize that everybody has their own place where the suspension of disbelief breaks, so if you want to tweak things to better suit the needs of you and your table, have at it!
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Lursi
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Re: Movement&Distances

Post by Lursi » Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:56 am

Lets leave out the Jamaican sprinter troubadour for a while...

The game became a bit shortsighted to fit on a battle mat. That is exactly what made it lose some of its story telling potential.

I am less concerned by the movement range alone, more by the ranges. These two values have to stay in proportion though.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Slimcreeper
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Re: Movement&Distances

Post by Slimcreeper » Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:27 am

Lursi wrote:
Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:56 am
The game became a bit shortsighted to fit on a battle mat. That is exactly what made it lose some of its story telling potential.
This is why I’m not a big fan of battlemaps. It gets you into a mindset of, “if it can’t be mapped it can’t be played.”

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