D&D 5E Can We Come Up With Better (but still simple) Movement Rules?

[tetrasodium]

What was your personal best running through a forest littered with leaves and crumbled ruins, while carrying a 25 pound pack, a longsword in a sheath across your back, a belt pouch with a pound of coins, and while wearing boots and a cloak? After a solid two days full of hiking at a moderate pace and eating camp rations and foraged grouse with berries? To make it fair, I should probably add while being chased by an angry bear...

This is somethin that absolutely should not be ignored.

Others have noted how much is missing from the tactical movement rules & that makes a lot of things hard, but specifically for a set of "chase" rules the best example I've seen doesn't care either way as it is simultaneously more dramatically more and less impacted by rules via aspects

The rules for fate are deceptively simple & generally difficult to cleanly apply to d&d in a pc facing way, but chase scenes are one that fits very well since they tend to go TotM or get resolved almost instantly making ruls for a chase itself pointless. One of the modules in embers of the last war starts with a dive from a sharn tower with various things that can give benefits or delay you in a pretty good approximation example. Basically each side rolls some kind of skill check (or con save?) & either gains or loses a point/tickmark/whatever until one side has +3. Unfortunately d&d doesn't really have any rules for trying to do a 20 mile sprint & just assumes you can. I'd look at the 3-4 pages covering that rule in the fate core rulebook for inspiration.
For a GM you can pretty much use the rules as is & make up whatever reasons for your players rolling with the opponent rolling or just having a flat dc the players need to beat & they won't even notice but will remember how awesome it felt. I've done that quite a few times but will warn that tabaxi basically break the entire thing & rogues with cunning action dash+dash action basically beak it because double or triple movement speed is too much to fot within the ilusion of descriptive aspects you make up on the fly unless the players are chasing quicklings or something

 

[Rockyroad]

I personally would not mess with the movement speeds in the game. It may not be completely accurate but it's an approximation that makes some sense. As others have pointed out sprinting in a straight line is different from combat movement. On the other hand if the enemy is in retreat and you're "chasing" them down then switching to a chase mode (whatever chase rules you may want to use) would be appropriate.

Having said that, if you really want extra speed incorporated into combat, a simple way to do it may be to add 10 ft x Athletics mod to your Dash Action. In exchange you have disadvantage on your next attack or maybe others have advantage on their next attack against you, whatever you want to do with that as long as there is some cost to getting the extra speed. This would scale as you improve in Athletics which would make sense. And I would not require an athletics check. For one it would make it simpler without having to make extra rolls and second, it's just running. I fail to see the need to actually make a check for that. Additionally, this extra speed should be tied to your Dash Action and not be given as a free add on to movement because then you'd be stepping on the Rogue's toes.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think flanking solves this issue either, as melee fighters pretty quickly just find themselves in lines and don't have any reason to move more than 5ft.

I personally aim to emphasize movement in my monster supplement through NPC abilities that target areas and give PCs time to react.

Flanking is missing the risk that made you plan or put in effort to get it. back when doing more than 5foot step meant AoOs a player would plan slightly more than "I run straight at it in the most direct route" so they could come in at one side while their ally comes in at the other side or something like that if they wanted to make use of flanking right away & to move one 5ft square at a time if not. in 5e they just need the move speed to do donuts around the baddie without worry. Now in 5e it's basically "do you have two or more melee characters in the group? are they attacking the same monster? well they must not have any move speed left this round if they aren't flanking yet so will be next round" It reduces the tactical elements down to major league baseball players playing T-ball

 

[loverdrive]

Flanking is missing the risk that made you plan or put in effort to get it. back when doing more than 5foot step meant AoOs a player would plan slightly more than "I run straight at it in the most direct route" so they could come in at one side while their ally comes in at the other side or something like that if they wanted to make use of flanking right away & to move one 5ft square at a time if not. in 5e they just need the move speed to do donuts around the baddie without worry. Now in 5e it's basically "do you have two or more melee characters in the group? are they attacking the same monster? well they must not have any move speed left this round if they aren't flanking yet so will be next round" It reduces the tactical elements down to major league baseball players playing T-ball

Yeah, and also opportunity attacks ain't that scary, since most of the monsters just have several pretty weak attacks.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, and also opportunity attacks ain't that scary, since most of the monsters just have several pretty weak attacks.

and the fact that monsters who have fewer big attacks are rendered harmless by the first level spell healing word & death saves acting as an absorb shield to soak anything up to death by massive damage for each of those heakling word's

 

[Rockyroad]

Except for feats like Sentinel or other special abilities, what would getting rid of OA do to the game? Would it encourage more fluid movement rather than the trench warfare that so often seems to occur in melee combat? I would think grappling would become very popular. Thoughts?
Sorry, don't mean to derail the thread.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I personally would not mess with the movement speeds in the game. It may not be completely accurate but it's an approximation that makes some sense. As others have pointed out sprinting in a straight line is different from combat movement. On the other hand if the enemy is in retreat and you're "chasing" them down then switching to a chase mode (whatever chase rules you may want to use) would be appropriate.

Having said that, if you really want extra speed incorporated into combat, a simple way to do it may be to add 10 ft x Athletics mod to your Dash Action. In exchange you have disadvantage on your next attack or maybe others have advantage on their next attack against you, whatever you want to do with that as long as there is some cost to getting the extra speed. This would scale as you improve in Athletics which would make sense. And I would not require an athletics check. For one it would make it simpler without having to make extra rolls and second, it's just running. I fail to see the need to actually make a check for that. Additionally, this extra speed should be tied to your Dash Action and not be given as a free add on to movement because then you'd be stepping on the Rogue's toes.

Interesting you should mention this as I was thinking along similar lines.

I like the idea from @NotAYakk about others getting advantage on attacking you if you increase your speed or movement. Combing that with my own thoughts and your suggestions:

Quick Move (part of Dash). Once per turn, you can further increase your movement when taking the Dash action, adding 10 x your Strength (Athletics) modifier to your speed, but until the start of your next turn attacks against you have advantage and you have disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws. You cannot quick move while wearing heavy armor or if you are heavily encumbered.

Looking at how some numbers work out I think this works well.

Ex. A 7th-level Rogue with STR 12 and Expertise in Athletics would have a +7 modifier for Strength (Athletics), adding 70 feet of movement. With a base speed of 30, and dash adding 30, quick moving would bring the total to 130.

Having expertise with max ability would gain +170 feet, for a total of 230 feet of movement, which would be faster than world-records IRL.

At high levels with magic, the right build could have movement well in excess of 750 feet, which is crazy to think about, but works for a fantasy game.

 

[tetrasodium]

Except for feats like Sentinel or other special abilities, what would getting rid of OA do to the game? Would it encourage more fluid movement rather than the trench warfare that so often seems to occur in melee combat? I would think grappling would become very popular. Thoughts?
Sorry, don't mean to derail the thread.

It would make the tactical component even more pointless than it already is. Getting rid of so many AoOs is part of why movement is already screwy in 5e

 

[NotAYakk]

Quick Move (part of Dash). Once per turn, you can further increase your movement when taking the Dash action, adding 10 x your Strength (Athletics) modifier to your speed, but until the start of your next turn attacks against you have advantage and you have disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws. You cannot quick move while wearing heavy armor or if you are heavily encumbered.

(a) so I would really want to make it a check. It being a check makes it flow into "chase" rules quite well.

It could even be a DC 10 check, and you gain "5' for every point your check exceeds 10".

(b) being easy to attack isn't enough. Quick moving into total cover is then a no-brainer. And it shouldn't be a no-brainer.

In 4e, you also got a penalty on attacks when you sprinted. Extending this to 5e, you'd get disadvantage on attacks, ability checks, and enemies have advantages against saves you impose.

 

[DND_Reborn]

(a) so I would really want to make it a check. It being a check makes it flow into "chase" rules quite well.

It could even be a DC 10 check, and you gain "5' for every point your check exceeds 10".

(b) being easy to attack isn't enough. Quick moving into total cover is then a no-brainer. And it shouldn't be a no-brainer.

In 4e, you also got a penalty on attacks when you sprinted. Extending this to 5e, you'd get disadvantage on attacks, ability checks, and enemies have advantages against saves you impose.

Hmm... I'm trying to avoid extra rolling. And there aren't any checks made for movement in the current chases rules IIRC anyway until you start facing exhaustion. The "check" thing is sort of there in that you are using your Strength (Athletics) modifier to increase your speed instead of it just being a set increase.

As far as total cover, it is a no-brainer anyway since attacks would fail, either way, so seeking total cover is always a good thing.

As far as getting disadvantage on your own attacks, you are already using the dash action as your action, so unless you have a feature which still allows you to attack, you don't get to. As far as those features are concerned, I wouldn't want to penalize them as they are special features, etc. and shouldn't be penalized IMO. I don't think there would be anything wrong if someone wanted to penalize them, I just don't.

I was thinking that using Quick Move might cost your reaction to gain the boost to speed (in addition to already taking the Dash action). In which case I would word it thus:

Quick Move (part of Dash). You can use your reaction to further increase your movement when taking the Dash action, adding 10 x your Strength (Athletics) modifier to your speed, but until the start of your next turn attacks against you have advantage and you have disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws. You cannot quick move while wearing heavy armor or if you are heavily encumbered.

The "once per turn" section is no longer needed since you only get one reaction per round anyway. This also increases the cost for classes like rogues, who can no longer use Uncanny Dodge if using Quick Move.