A Thought on Turn-Based Movement

[Bedrockgames]

One option is to have ranged attackers not engaged in melee go first. I think The Alexandrian has an alternative initiative system set up on his blog for this sort of thing. Personally, with D&D i think it is just easier to keep things as are and try to work within the system. Changes to this aspect of play can have big ripple effects if you are not careful (nothing wrong with trying though). As others have pointed out, readied actions can go a long way in this case. Attacks of opportunity could also come into play (i suppose as a matter of consistnecy and realism it would make more sense if ranged attacks threatened anyone who was running nearby you like that. But that also would be a game balance nightmare as bowmen would own the grid.

 

[delericho]

But this seems a lot more finicky than what I propose in the OP: Which is to play the game normally unless someone moves 3x Speed or faster. If you don't have anybody running in a straight line when terrain permits (which is the only time, under the rules, that a character can move 3x Speed or more), then you don't worry about it. It's a non-issue.

If a character does run during the round, he gets a double move on his nish count (which is probably half his movement), then he gets to finish the move after all other characters have had a chance to act.

That works fine, until you get the situation where the guard instead has a bow and the requisite feats, and instead of running he unleashes half a dozen attacks before the PCs get to respond. At which point you have an example that is equally absurd, is rooted in exactly the same problem, and requires its own little fix.

And then once you've done that one, there's the next issue, and the next, and...

 

[fjw70]

I take your point, and it is a good point. The problem is, with the situations expressed in the OP, that it is never possible act quickly and chunk your hand axe or spear at a foe that runs full-out, because, once your foe runs, he's too far away by either range categories or penalties to-hit in order to attack him.

You can act quickly enough if you win initiative.

 

[Water Bob]

That's why at the beginning of the turn I have everyone declare there actions after initiative rolled but before anyone starts moving. Most older systems such as 2nd edition AD&D had it the same way. If you character is going to throw a spear it isn't like his enemy is going to stop in time while they do so.

I hate declaring before hand. As a round progresses, things change. Players should be able to react to things, not be locked into what they've declared before they were aware of all the circumstances.

Plus, I don't like how asking for declaration breaks up the flow and action of the combat.

You can act quickly enough if you win initiative.

If you win nish, the guard doesn't run yet. Still, it's impossible to chunk your spear or hand axe at a running guard. You can throw it at the guard before he runs.

The is about being able to react. The guard runs, and you try to stop him before he gets too far away.

 

[Celebrim]

Turn based movement is an ease of play abstraction. It has enormous numbers of difficulties, which a DM ought to occasionally be willing to deal with by on the fly rulings whenever the rules are breaking player emmersion and creating low fidelity.

However, in general the problems created by turn based resolutions are smaller, much much smaller, than the problems created by attempting to create high fidelity less abstract resolutions.

It's pretty easy to increase the accuracy of a turn based resolution system with respect to capturing analog movement. You simply increase the sampling rate by decreasing the amount of time covered by the abstract round. Often this ends up involving a multi-tiered timing system with larger turns and smaller rounds, segments or impulses. The smaller the amount of time covered in a round, the smaller the 'squares' you can occupy, then the greater fidelity you will have to realities continuous analog experience. However, this tends to be chasing something down the rabbit hole. The more you try to make the actions in a round concrete representations of reality, the more you tend to slip into an 'uncanny valley' where the lack of adherence to expectation more and more annoys. Worse yet, the time required to resolve the combat increases exponentially. Instead of resolving combats in 2 or 3 or 5 or 20 rounds, you may well need 100 or 200 rounds for a combat involving very careful time tracking as actions will typically be ongoing over a different number of rounds for each actor. You might start a 5 round action in turn 6, while the other player has started a 3 round action in turn 4, the spellcaster has a 6 round action that they started in round 2, and the monster is in the midst of a 10 round action begun on round 1. This involves a lot of mental overhead and bookkeeping, and tends to make combat drrrraaaaaggggggg and bog down your story as combats take up a greater and greater percentage of play time. Ironically, what may have started with the intention of having more exciting and more interesting combats, will often result in rules sets that encourage players to avoid combat as a resolution method simply because of the crushing time burden it imposes.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

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.

For your quoted OODA time of 2-3, that sounds very much like a D&D surprise round. Since the OP did not mention surprise I would presume everyone had their minds in combat mode and there's no reason why the PC shouldn't be able to try to hit the enemy.

I'll concede that surprise like this happens, per the memoirs you mentioned, but I don't expect it happens 50% of the time, as is a result of the RAW initiative rules.

Mr. Boyd did his research in the realm of air combat, in which the pilot has to process complex limited information. I would argue that in the simpler, more sensory-rich environment of melee combat people can react much faster.

I would also argue that if you're surprised you don't necessarily just sit there figuring out what to do. Instead do whatever you were trained to do in the situation. I'll share a personal example here. Some years ago, I had a gun pulled on me at close range. If I'd thought about it I certainly would have just let the guy take my wallet. Instead, my training kicked in, and I blocked the gun out before he could bring it to bear and took it away. In this case my training bypassed the middle steps of the OODA loop. I find it perfectly reasonable to let PCs react quickly with player aforethought to simulate the training and experience they have.

So no, I don't find the OP's example realistic or reasonable as something that happens every round in D&D. Once in a while for surprise, sure. But the RAW makes this happen all the time.

 

[S'mon]

For your quoted OODA time of 2-3, that sounds very much like a D&D surprise round...
Mr. Boyd did his research in the realm of air combat, in which the pilot has to process complex limited information. I would argue that in the simpler, more sensory-rich environment of melee combat people can react much faster.

3-5, not 2-3. And you are right (but wrong) about air combat, air combat OODA for fighter pilots is around 12 seconds, AIR. 3-5 seconds is the individual ground combatant OODA. Ground combat infantry squad leader was also around 12-15 seconds AIR - ie it takes a lot longer to command & coordinate a squad than to command and coordinate yourself alone - while a tank commander's OODA was more like 30 seconds due to limited sensory input and other issues.

 

[S'mon]

I would also argue that if you're surprised you don't necessarily just sit there figuring out what to do. Instead do whatever you were trained to do in the situation. I'll share a personal example here. Some years ago, I had a gun pulled on me at close range. If I'd thought about it I certainly would have just let the guy take my wallet. Instead, my training kicked in, and I blocked the gun out before he could bring it to bear and took it away.

I had a similar, less dramatic experience some years ago - guy on a bike took a swing at me on Tooting High Street out of the blue, I blocked it without conscious thought, he and his mate pedalled their bikes away very fast, and I remember just watching them go. I was 'keyed' to block the attack but like you say, that's instinct not OODA. That's why I can see a case for quasi-readied actions out of combat. OTOH, 98% of the population cannot go to killing force by instinct, they have to decide to kill. I think there are enough factors that abiding by the init roll is almost always appropriate; your story sounds more like a 3e Attack of Opportunity or 4e Immediate Action. Mine was just "Is not flatfooted/does not grant combat advantage in first round of combat".

 

[MarkB]

I think, if it gets to a point where it's one guy running and others trying to close and engage him, it's time to break out of combat rounds and make it a chase scene, dictated by skill checks interacting with environmental factors which determine whether and how soon you can close sufficiently to engage him in combat. And once you do close and it reverts back to combat, rule that as a result of the chase all combatants will be unable to use the Run action for the next several rounds.

 

[Storminator]

In my game the apocalyptic street corner preachers constantly rant about how only one person can move at a time, and that diagonals are the same length as orthogonal distance. "He broke the 4th wall and it broke his brain."

PS