A Thought on Turn-Based Movement

[JamesonCourage]

Absolutely right, which strengthens my point. Shouldn't he have a chance to throw on those circumstances described?

I can see by your house rule, that you do, on some level, agree.

It's technically a rule, not a house rule. My game isn't 3.5, but it was inspired by it. It has same very massive changes. But yes, I did change this (just like I changed how full attacking happening all at once works. Heck, it's only two attacks now, too, not up to 4).

I guess my suggestion wasn't what you were looking for, though. I am warning against it on some level, as it's more fiddly. To my group, it's ultimately more satisfying, but I don't know yours. As always, play what you like

 

[Sunseeker]

A full move action is a dead sprint; 120 feet. That's 40 yards in 6 seconds. The slowest 40 yard dash time on record at the NFL Combine is 6.31 seconds, run by a lineman (who typically weigh 280-325 pounds). My experience as a High School and College coach is that the average athlete can run 40 yards in under 5 seconds, and the average dude that just plays because his dad wants him too comes in around 5.5 seconds. Over six seconds is actually quite rare, even among 300+ pound offensive linemen, for anyone but complete couch potatoes and older folks.

Truth; at 120 feet in a round, we're getting screwed

Just for the record, exceptionally fast... that is, absolute elite, 1% type level, is under 4.25 seconds. These guys would cover closer to 180 ft. in a round. Rumor has it that Usain Bolt runs the 40 in under 4 seconds, but I haven't seen anything verifying that (and its probably not true; converting his 40-meter time to 40-yards doesn't account for continued acceleration).

"Way too much movement" meant "in relation to a quasi-tactical board-game", not "in relation to real life".

 

[Lanefan]

There is very little good to be said about strict turn-based actions, the OP's situation merely highlights one problem.

Best way to quickly handle this particular one in 3e or similar that I can think of would be to set the range by how much of the round has elapsed between the guy running and the spear following. Example: guard flees at 120' per round on init. 20. Falstaffe throws his spear on init. 10, exactly half a round later...which tells me the guard's gone half of his allowed 120'. So when the spear's thrown it's at 60' range. (and for those who want to nitpick about the spear taking a bit of time to catch up to the guard, I'd say it about cancels the fact the guard had to get up to speed...)

Lan-"don't get me started about the rest of the problems with turn-based"-efan

 

[DanotheSlender]

Had a similar situation a long time ago, in 2nd ed. we lost initiative, and the guard turned to flee, 3 of the party had ranged weapons or spells available, the DM ruled a ranged only attack of opprotunity was acceptable at a -3 to hit..cause hey he got the drop on us but everything is supposed to be simultanious action within the 6 second round...course i am not learned in the ways of 3.x or pathfinder so maybe it is a moot point..

Game On!!

 

[delericho]

Of course there is. The PC just declares that they're readying an action in case they come across a foe.

I don't think this is permissible, for the main reason that it renders Initiative meaningless - every character will have some sort of action readied at all times.

(That said, I do recall Pathfinder modules stating that various creatures have specific actions readied. I've always assumed that this is a rules mistake on their part.)

Keep in mind that actions exist at all times in the game, even when you're not in combat...

Actions in general do, yes. However, Ready is classed as a "Special Initiative Action" - it has no meaning outside of the Initiative sequence.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I agree with the OP that this is one of the drawbacks of D&D's turns and initiative system. So the orc can run his full distance movement before you can huck a spear at him, even though it supposedly take him a full round to run that distance? That's not reasonable at all. Readied action is a lousy fix for this problem. Watching the orc take his full move because you didn't decide to throw a spear at him last round makes no sense either.

Back in 1E/2E my group used a detailed initiative system to fix this and other problems. I'll simplify it greatly to explain how we would deal with this issue. Everyone rolled d10 to determine what segment the acted on, with 20 segments in a round. If you moved you could move one square per segment. This meant that if the DM rolled a 3 for the orcs and the player rolled a 7, then the orc got to move 4 squares, then the player got his attack. It wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than the RAW system without slowing down play.

 

[delericho]

Thus is one of the ugly faults of turn based combat in a game system that allows a character to take a full 6 seconds of action before the next character moves.

Yep. Basically, it's an issue of resolution - the game applies a 6-second 'shutter' on events, meaning that any events that take less time than that are hard to see. It's especially problematic in the very first round of combat, when it's quite likely that a whole bunch of special cases may apply.

The issue can be improved (though not totally eliminated) by reducing the round to a smaller increment and allowing characters to do correspondingly less. For example, you could switch to a 3-second round and only allow a single action (standard or move) in that time. However, this of course has knock-on effects for the rest of the system.

One thing I would suggest would be to start every combat with a surprise round, even if nobody is actually surprised. That would allow the guard to get moving, but limit the distance he can cover before the PCs get to respond. And it's a fairly painless way to resolve the particular issue you have described.

(Of course, there are other corner cases that it doesn't fix - ultimately, round-based combat may be nothing more than the least-worst option available in the game, and not something that can ever be completely fixed.)

 

[S'mon]

With real people having a 3-5 second individual OODA loop according to John Boyd, the RAW is perfectly realistic as-is. The player is confusing the situation where they already have Oriented Observed and Decided, and only have to Act, with the situation where they have to go through the whole OODA loop - which is what the init roll represents.
Or: IRL it's perfectly plausible that two unprepared groups run into each other, one hightails it and has gone a good distance before the other has weapons ready and firing. My grandfather in law accounted some very similar experiences fighting the Germans in WW2 in his memoirs.

Edit: OP numbers don't seem to make sense though. If both parties have a 60' speed, then either the winner can (3e) run 120' and the loser can run 120' after them (or charge 60' + attack at end), if both can run in a straight line, or the terrain doesn't allow running and both can only double-move 60'.
I do think the 3e combat-sprint x4 move is a bit extreme, I like 4e's approach where a Run is just +10' per move action, ie 30' > 40', or 80' at a double move run, whereas the pursuer could move + charge 60' or run 80', or even run 40' then charge 30' if he didn't mind attacking at -5.

 

[Starfox]

With real people having a 3-5 second individual OODA loop according to John Boyd, the RAW is perfectly realistic as-is. The player is confusing the situation where they already have Oriented Observed and Decided, and only have to Act, with the situation where they have to go through the whole OODA loop - which is what the init roll represents.
Or: IRL it's perfectly plausible that two unprepared groups run into each other, one hightails it and has gone a good distance before the other has weapons ready and firing. My grandfather in law accounted some very similar experiences fighting the Germans in WW2 in his memoirs.

I agree completely. In my LARP experience, you get semi-surprised by all kinds of things. Someone suddenly bolting and getting a good distance before you react is not wrong.

Also, my take on readying actions is that you can only do so in combat time. You cannot ready before combat - that is what initiative is all about. If you start with readied actions, that is called surprise. And you cannot run at x4 speed down a twisting corridor - running has to be in a straight line.

 

[D'karr]

For things like this I've gone to an abstract "chase" system. The guard rounds the corner, sees the party and bolts. Abstract chase ensues. At the end of the chase the party is within range to attack, or the guard gets away. There are times where strict movement rules need to take a back seat to the action happening in game.

We had a pretty exciting mine cart combat, and chase scene that would have been complete boredom with turn based movement. This convinced me to drop the tactical movement when it does not suit the game at the table.