Barbarians in Medium Armor (WAS: Jennifer Lopez And Tom Cruise Nude!!!!!!!)

[kreynolds]

*Unfortunately, there is no entry in SRD for what the speed would be for someone with 15' speed wearing medium armor or carrying a medium load. I made a house rule to set it to 10'. Is there one in the Monster Manual?

It's 10 (15 / 3 = 5 x 2 = 10). It's in the FAQ.

 

[Christian]

The way that I interpreted the rule was to apply the Fast Movement +10 feet modifier after the speed was determined, i.e., after looking up speed in the Armor table and then looking up speed in the Carrying Loads table.

No.

If you want to determine whether your character's gear is heavy enough to slow him or her down (more than the armor already does), total the weight of all his or her armor, weapons, and gear. Compare this total to the character's Strength on Table: Carrying Capacity.

If your character is wearing armor, use the worse figure (from armor or from weight) for each category. Do not stack the penalties.

(SRD, first paragraph of the 'Carrying, Moving, and Seeing' section. There's a similar passage in the PH, which book is inaccessible to me at this moment.)

 

[JChung2003]

That would explain the non-existence of a 15' entry then: thanks!

Amended table:

human barbarian (base 30') with no armor and light load = 40'
...with medium armor and-or medium load = 30' (20+10)

dwarf barbarian (base 20') with no armor and light load = 30'
...with medium load and-or medium armor = 25' (15+10)

I like it: much simpler. I don't know why the others were multiplying and dividing. You can't just divide by 1/3; that works for Medium-size characters but not for Small characters.

 

[kreynolds]

I don't know why the others were multiplying and dividing.

Because as far as I know, it's the correct method.

You can't just divide by 1/3; that works for Medium-size characters but not for Small characters.

Dwarves are not Small characters. They are medium-size with a reduced speed, so your speed is still incorrect.

 

[Christian]

You don't generally have to do any long division, because there are only a few ranges of speed you need to deal with. Dwarves and small characters move at 20', medium characters and dwarvish or small barbarians at 30', medium barbarians, ponies, and wardogs at 40', and horses at 50'. Encumbered/armored speeds (with more than light armor) are 15', 20', 30', and 35'. Read and learn, and you're done.

Dwarvish barbarians have a base move of 30'; like other characters with a base move of 30', they have a move of 20' when encumbered. (With heavy encumbrance or armor, they lose their barbaric speed bonus, and crawl along at 15' like the other encumbered dwarves.)

Monks would be a pain, but fortunately, they lose all of their bonus speed when encumbered or armored. Whew!

 

[mkletch]

Re: Re: Jennifer Lopez And Tom Cruise Nude!!!!!!!

I agree with your interp of the rule, Fletch-but not your numbers. A (say) human barbarian will have a base speed of 40', and an encumbered/armored speed of 30'. That's the encumbered speed of a character/creature with a base speed of 40' (see the D&D FAQ, or reverse-engineer the overland movement rates in the PH)

The FAQ would be correct, of course. It just seems lazy to me that they doubled the value for 15 to get the value for 30. The rounding is different.

His speed is cut by a third. Divide the base speed by 3, multiply the result by 2, then round that result up to the nearest 5 (40 / 3 = 13.33 x 2 = 26.66 {round up} = 30)

EDIT: Damnit. That's twice I've done that...argh. Anyways, make sure your round up, not down.

See, this is how I did it, but aren't you always supposed to round fractions down, regardless of the fraction? See Rounding Fractions in the appendix of the PHB. Here is one case where the designers/rules committee did not follow the rules...

-Fletch!

 

[kreynolds]

Re: Re: Re: Jennifer Lopez And Tom Cruise Nude!!!!!!!

See, this is how I did it, but aren't you always supposed to round fractions down, regardless of the fraction?

Generally, yes.

Here is one case where the designers/rules committee did not follow the rules...

You only round down unless specifically told otherwise. The speed tables in the FAQ round up. The other reason they rounded speeds up instead of down is because of small characters with a base speed of 20. While wearing medium or heavy armor, small characters would be reduced to a base speed of 10 if you round down, but because you round up, the speed is only dropped to 15, which isn't nearly as bad.

 

[Christian]

Well, at least they're being broken in a consistent manner for this application ... Otherwise, a dwarf would move 20' * (2/3) = 13'4" => 10' when encumbered. The key is that you always round up to the next 5'; you don't round the 26'8" down to 25'.

Then, their 'lazy' method falls into the 'lazy but clever' category. As long as you're dealing with moves that are multiples of 10', and as long as you build up your 'sub-moves' with as many 30' moves as possible, it will always give the same answer as multiplying by two-thirds and rounding up ...

 

[Ziggy]

A related question:

When you cut the movement rate in half (e.g. because of calthrops), is the move rounded to the nearest 5 ? And in that case, is it rounded up or down ?

Example:

A dwarf in heavy armor has a move of 15. Half move is then either 5, 7.5, or 10 (depending on if and how you round).

.Ziggy

 

[kreynolds]

To be honest Ziggy, I can't remember. I just saw a sage reply on this a few days ago though. I'll see if I can find it.

My gut, however, tells me to keep with the continuity and round up.