Modes of Movement (like flight) as skills

[Denaes]

I've actually long been of the opinion that all modes of movement (including Fly) should be skills - limited in use to those with a means of actually accomplishing them (wings or other means of gliding or flight for Fly, fins / streamlined body for Swim, digits / hooks / etc for Climb, some means of shoving loose mass out of the way for burrow, etc). However, it would require a bit of reworking of the skills system, I think.

Ok, I didn't want to crap on that other thread talking about the craft skill so I brought the discussion over here to talk about it.

Are you talking about making skills like Climb & Swim dependant on body type? Or are you talking about having an actual "Walk" skill and "Flight" skill?

I'm just curious and also the biggest question would be: "Why?" what would that accomplish and how does it make the game better - if only in theory?

 

[Artoomis]

I don't mean to be the "forum police," but wouldn't this be beter discussed in "house rules?"

 

[Denaes]

Yes, I suppose so.

I didn't know categories were watered down here on enWorld, I normally enter on the D&D Rules Forum or the OGL Forum.

Sorry about that.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Danaes, no problem, we will just ask a Mod to move it over.. happens all the time

In the mean time...

I have thought along the same lines as this before, and use this for Climb and Swim, but not Fly or burrow. Fly is a bit more complicated.

Essentially having the movement type grants a +10 to the skill check and allows you to take 10 in stressfull circumstances, as the rules are for Climb speeds.
Movement skills are Swim, Climb, Fly, and Burrow.
THe DC of the movement is treated as a penalty to your roll, and the result of your skill check is the amount of movement attained.

As an example, Climbing a brick wall is DC 10. Rolling a total of 15 results in gaining 5' of movement up the wall.
I have pretty involved rules on Swimming in this fashion that worked pretty well in play.


The why of it is simple.. at least for CLimb and Swim. There is no granularity in the system. Beat the DC, climb half your movement. It doesn't matter if you beat it by 30 points.. you still move half your movement. Using the skill to get the number of feat travel rewards the expentidure of skill points with a mechanical advantage...while at the same time remaining very easy for a player to calculate in play.

To do this with Burrow and Fly,..they dont show up enough in my games to make me want to tweak the mechanics. Fly has enough oddities anyway.

 

[LostSoul]

Isn't Balance the "Walk" skill?

 

[Denaes]

The why of it is simple.. at least for CLimb and Swim. There is no granularity in the system. Beat the DC, climb half your movement. It doesn't matter if you beat it by 30 points.. you still move half your movement. Using the skill to get the number of feat travel rewards the expentidure of skill points with a mechanical advantage...while at the same time remaining very easy for a player to calculate in play.

To do this with Burrow and Fly,..they dont show up enough in my games to make me want to tweak the mechanics. Fly has enough oddities anyway.

That is one thing that D&D and most of standard d20 dissapoints me in skills. Often skills are just pass/fail. Some are harder, but it often doesn't matter if you beat the roll by 1 or 10 or 30.

Iron Heros was supposed to have ideas for skills where you can do extra things for beating the TN or you're raising the TN, like reducing the time it takes: Standard becomes Free action, doing two skills at once, etc.

It seems interesting and would add a nice level of benefit for highly skilled characters.