5th Edition: Run Action?

[Xeviat]

Run Action


Hi everyone. I’mcurrently working on a project that had me staring at the animalspeeds in the Monster Manual as well as actual animal speeds in thereal world, and I was reminded that 5E does not have a runningmechanic. Fly speeds are tremendously low to even do the cruisingspeeds of many birds; a cursory google search shows bird cruisingspeeds are in the 20-to-30 mph range.


For quick reference,1 mph equals 8.8 ft/round specifically, though D&D often shorthands this to 10. 30 mph would be a speed of 264 … or 300 by D&Dsimple math. That’s … ridiculous. (3E had "overland flight" to help with this).



3^rdEdition used to have the run action; it was a full-round action thatallowed you to run at x4 your speed (x3 if you were wearing heavyarmor).


30 ft = 3.4 mph
60 ft = 6.8 mph
90 ft = 10.2 mph
120 ft = 13.6 mph


A quick googlesearch finds that 10-15 mph is considered “average” human runningspeed over short distances. I’ve seen 15 mph stated in a fewplaces, once even citing the “National Council on Strength andFitness”, with no citation. 3E’s numbers fall reasonably withinthis range. I did find 3.1 mph as “average human walking speed”(taken from watching people walk across cross walks and averaging),and average jogging speed listed as 6 mph.


I even checkedmyself on a treadmill; I’m a bit overweight and have chronic footpain, but 3 mph is a comfortable walk and 6 mph is jog I can keep upfor a while (I didn’t have the guts to really blare the motor onsprinting; I topped out at 10 mph before giving up). And, again, I’mnot a fit adventurer.


So, it’s simple,right? Just bring in 3E’s run action, modified for 5E’s language.The Dash action already allows us to double move. So the run actioncould be something like this:


Run: As anaction, you can move up to 4 times your speed in a relativelystraight line. You cannot take your regular movement. If you arewearing heavy armor, your run speed is instead 3 times your speed.


Alright, that’sthe end of it, right?


Nope.


5E throws us ourfirst curveball; the Monk and the Rogue can both take the Dash actionas a bonus action, allowing another increment of their movement rate.I’ll come back to this, because I do want to discuss this; should acharacter be allowed to “double dash” (action dash, bonus actiondash, and then move their speed with movement), or should the Monkand Rogue abilities be thought of more as them moving while doingsomething else. Let’s table this for a second and talk aboutSprinters.


Humans can be fast.A study I found says, biomechanically, humans could maybe max out at45 MPH. But, the current top speed is Usain Bolt at 28 mph during his100 meter dash; but this speed was only held for 2 seconds. D&Ddoesn’t deal with increments that small. There’s alsoacceleration to take into account, right?


Usain Bolt’s 100meter (328 feet) record is 9.58 seconds. His 200 meter (656 feet) is19.19 seconds. I was able to find breakdowns of his 100 meter dashsecond by second. At the 6 second mark, he had hit 56 meters, or 184feet.


In 1 round, UsainBolt sprinted 184 feet. In just over 3 rounds, he sprinted 656 feet.9.58 doesn’t fit into rounds nicely, unfortunately for us, but wecan play with these numbers a little. I broke things down into feetper seconds/rounds and worked backwards, which helps account for thefractional rounds here.


Round 1, his speedwas 184. Round 2 and 3, he averaged 215 feet per round. Over all 3rounds, he averaged 205. I know his peak speed of 28 mph (246ft/round) was held steady between the 6^th and 8^thseconds, we can say the 2^nd round is the fastest. Somecrude estimates, and assuming a smooth speed drop off after the 8^thsecond through to the end, I get 184 for Round 1, 236 for Round 2,and 202 for Round 3.


So, how do we buildUsain Bolt while we’re making these rules. I doubt his ground speedis significantly above the speed 30 (I can’t find anything abouthow fast he walks). Also, as he’s a regular person, I’d want tokeep levels limited and keep the resources we’re spending on his“build” to a minimum.


The Mobile featgives +10 speed. It’s safe to say he is trained in Athletics. Ithink we can safely assume he also has “expertise” in Athletics,either from a skill feat, the Prodigy feat, or levels. Lets alsothink about whether the Monk or Rogue’s bonus action dash isneeded.


With a 40 ft basespeed, his Walk (move), Jog (dash/move), Run (4xMove) speeds become:


40 ft = 4.5 mph
80 ft = 9.1 mph
160 ft = 18.2 mph


160 is pretty closeto 184.


But then heaccelerates and ends up faster on Round 2 and then loses some speedon round 3 (but still faster than Round 1).




A quick aside; I’velooked at other race records, and here’s some different feet perround scores for all of them. I even went through the trouble ofgraphing them and it’s very linear; average speed is flat for the100 and 200 meter dashes, then it slows down rather smooth the 400and 800 meter dashes. Speed loss levels out after this for the 1 kmrace. “Long distance running” is apparently at 8 kms and up, butspeed loss really begins to slow after the 600 meter race, notexperiencing a sizable dip in speed until we go from the 40 km to the50 km. Apparently, endurance athletes can jog for a really long time.


Distance: Averagespeed in ft/round (time to complete)
100 m: 205 (9.58 s)
200 m: 205 (19.19 s)
300 m: 192 (30.81 s,5 rounds!)
400 m: 183 (43.03 s,7ish rounds!)
500 m: 171 (57.69 s,nearly 1 min)
600 m: 162
800 m: 156
1 km: 149
1.5 km: 143
2 km: 138
3 km: 134
5 km: 126
10 km: 125
15 km: 120
20 km: 119 (we’reat 0.92 hours here)
25 km: 115
30 km: 113
40 km: 113 (we’reat 1.93 hours here
50 km: 100
100 km: 89 (thisrace took 6.15 hours)




So, what I think weneed is some way to use the Athletics skill to boost speed. I thinkwe also need to decide on the “double dash” situation. I don’tnecessarily want every athlete to have to be a rogue (but then again,aside from thieve’s cant, thief’s tools proficiency, and sneakattack, the abilities are useful). Also, the running technique forthe shorter 100 and 200 meter dashes are likely different than the400 and 800 meter races, but the smooth speed progression from 200 to400 to 800 does level off above that. Maybe sprinters and endurancerunners take a different feat? Why don’t we have an enduranceskill.


Now, should a“sprint” action be handled with athletics checks? I do not thinkwe need to get so granular as to model the round by round loss ofspeed, and the d20 has too much variety to really be putting amultiplier in. These elite sprinters aren’t botching runs with suchfrequency for it to be on a d20, but if we’re looking at somethinglike a 12-14 Str/Con/Dex, with Expertise and maybe 4-5 levels theycould have a +5 to +8 Athletics bonus. A DC 20 check to sprint mightnot be too bad.


But, again, if welook above, our joggers are maintaining speeds in excess of 100 ftper round up until around 50 km, and still nearly 90 at 100 km. Theseathletes aren’t just “double moving” for 6 hours straight, evenwith a 40 ft speed from Mobile.


The Chase rules inthe DMG say you can freely use the Dash action a number of timesequal to 3 + Con mod; each additional dash action it takes requiresthe creature to succeed on a DC 10 Con check at the end of its turnor gain one level of exhaustion. Above, our hero moved at 89 speedfor 6 hours, and it would be safe to project maybe 80 over 8 hours;with a 40 speed, that’s 4,800 dash actions; I don’t think they’resitting on 28 Constitution scores.


And even the forcedmarch rules in the PHB are woefully below this. 80 speed would be 9mph. The PHB sets Fast overland travel at 4 mph.


Now, all of theseare from absolutely unencumbered people using “masterwork tools”(I liked that concept back in 3E). Maybe modern running shoes wouldcount as magic items, I don’t know. I guarantee you these speeds would be lower with anything more than light clothing on, and even what counts as a "light load" would be some heavy work.


Now, after thatlarge post, what are your thoughts? I don't need to be able to recreate everything here, but I think it would be good if we could add more to a high speed chase with some better sprinting rules, and overland travel with some better hustling rules. Not all PCs are super athletes, but a fair amount of them are and I could easily envision some Lord of the Rings-esque "We need to get there before nightfall" marathons for some parties.

 

[Xeviat]

TLR

5th Edition doesn't have a Run action (x4 speed). Without the Run action, PCs cannot reach speeds achievable by real world human athletes. The current Dash action covers "jogging" very well, even for ridiculous distances, but it does not cover Running/Sprinting.

Olympic sprinters can hit D&D speeds of 180 over 6 seconds, and continue to accelerate up to speeds of 230+ for round 2 and 200 for round 3. Over a minute, they could hit average speeds of 170, and 115 over an hour. This could be simulated with alternating between a run and a dash action, but if it was done round by round a failure would be bound to happen.

I think Dash actions and Run actions should have different timers for when you need Constitution checks. A scaling penalty could be possible, a penalty that decreases when you stop those actions. I wouldn't want to make such a system be too complicated, though. The Exhaustion track is simply too punitive, as 2 hits would cut your speed in half and take 2 days of recovery.

 

[Kurotowa]

Honestly, I think you're adding a lot of complexity where it isn't needed. Combat movement isn't the same as non-combat movement isn't the same as an athletic contest.

Combat movement involves maintaining a defense stance and checking your surroundings and holding weapons and a lot of other things that limit your top speed. Non-combat movement gets abstracted heavily and is typically measured in hours not seconds. When it is timed that finely, like for footraces or ticking bombs, you're asking for Athletics or Acrobatics checks not Dash or Run actions. Which is not to say your DM might not assign Advantage for having bonus move speed from a class feature or feat.

Also, 5e is just not that simulationist. It isn't a game about Olympic sprinters so it doesn't care about them in the least. Instead it wants to keep the available options simple and easy to use to avoid confusion or necessitate battlemats. If you want to be super fast, make a Monk with Mobility and Move-Dash-Dash for incredible distances. If not, keep it simple.

 

[Horwath]

I think that 30ft per round is a good combat walking pace.

running/sprinting is not usually in D&D scope of things as you are carrying a lot of gear.

excellent example is US army ranger school.

You have to pass a 12 mile track in full gear under 3 hrs or be dropped.

That is about 35ft per round.

 

[GothicEmperor]

Just ask for an Athletics check?

 

[Stalker0]

My quick thoughts:

if you add in the run action go with this:

The run action cannot be combined with other actions, bonus actions, or movement.

When you take the run action, you move up to 4x your speed, but must move in a straight line. If you succeed at a DC 20 strength (athletics) check, you may move x5 your speed. If you are encumbered by weight or armor, drop the speed multiplier to x3 (x4 with successful athletics check).


This adds in the athletics you wanted, ensures no weird stacking, and handles armor encumbrance. I think this is all you really need.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I created a pseudo "Run" action that I am currently using in my two Eberron campaigns based off of bonus actions, along with two other "new" actions that give the same. They are:

Sprint: When you take the Dash action, you can use your bonus action to Dash again.

Retreat: When you take the Disengage action, you can use your bonus action to Dash.

Charge: When you take the Dash action, you can use your bonus action to make a single melee attack against a target in range.

What these result in is the Sprint allows all characters to move their movement speed three times in a round (move + Dash + Dash), Retreat allows all characters to move their movement speed twice in a round without triggering OAs (move + Disengage + Dash), and Charge allows all characters to move their movement speed twice in a round and attack at the end (move + Dash + attack).

Does this slightly reduce the specialness of the Rogue and the Monk who get some of these actions as bonus actions? A little, sure. But they both can still do things like Disengage and Dash with bonus actions without being tied into specific actions-- so they can still Attack while then using bonus actions to Dash or Disengage and then move. But what my "new" actions do is allow all characters to move three times their speed, which is something I needed for my games-- I found it quite ridiculous that the rogue in my last campaign was greatly out-pacing every other character and enemy just because he got to use his bonus action for a third movement and no one else could.

Thus my extra actions that all characters and monsters can take. Thus far I haven't seen any issues, and my new Rogue PC hasn't noticed any impinging on his schtick.

 

[Li Shenron]

I am sure you had a good time doing your research but let me make a bold statement here: we do NOT need this.

IMXP in 3e the Run action was rarely used, and when it was used it was always for microtactics. 5e eschews most of the microtactics of 3e, it just follows a different game philosophy.

If you want to bring back more micromanagement to 5e, there are many areas of the game that IMHO are more interesting to complicate, such as weapons, armors, terrain, climate, injuries or even spell components... but running I don't think it comes up often enough to bother. Of course I can't speak for your game, just IMXP...

 

[jmartkdr]

Unless you have a ot of fights in very big spaces where the pc's start 200 or more feet form the enemy, you'll never see this come up.

 

[jgsugden]

Keeping it relatively simple:

RUN (bonus action): If 1.) you are carrying less than your strength score in weight, 2.) you used the dash action, and 3.) all of your movement was in a straight line: Then you may use this action to move up to the same distance you have already moved this turn so long as it continues in the same direction that you have already moved.

Turning will slow them down.

A high level wood elf monk with the mobile feet (speed 75) could use this option to reach roughly 35 MPH. A very good real world sprinter is going to be able to reach about 20 MPH - which would be a speed of about 45 in D&D, something that takes a little effort, but is in line with a monk or mobile feat PC.

As for the limit on how long you can do this... wing it. Allow it for the length of a combat, but use a 45 speed character equaling a championship athlete in the real world as a benchmark to determine how fast a PC can run long distances. A roughly two hour marathon is the top of human achievement. I'd let a 45 speed PC do that... or a 75 speed (wood elf high level monk wth mobility) achieve that in about 75 minutes.