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

[billd91]

We could reintroduce the Shift pretty easily.

Shift: You can spend movement equal to your speed to move 5 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.

That could even replace the Disengage action - if you want to spend your action to move your full speed without provoking OAs, you can just use your action to dash and then Shift, getting you 5 feet away from your opponent with your speed worth of movement left.

Personally, I would rather not. And with the reduction of attacks of opportunity in general, I don't think it's really necessary. It was far too easy to use the 5 foot step to avoid AoO. Sometimes, for a more interesting game, you just have to impose the difficult choice - disengage as your action or provoke the AoO - rather than keep your cake and eat it as well.

 

[Stalker0]

You could take a page out of 4e book.

a player can gain a +10 to their base speed but suffer disadvantage on attacks. Or if you want to go more pure 4e have it be a -2 to AC.

of course this is practically a freebie to barbarians but it’s one way to do it that’s quick clean and easy

 

[Shiroiken]

I think the notion of making a Str/Athletics check to increase your speed is the best way to go. A simple method would simply be to add the die roll (times a modifier if needed, this is just conceptual) to the speed for the round. Another option (preferable if using a grid) would be to set a DC for every 5 ft of extra movement. Given that high rates of speed reduce the ability to turn or react, I'd consider granting disadvantage to Dex checks/saves until the start of the next turn. Using this and your knowledge of sprinting, you should be able to set a DC or multiplier that gives you what you want. Ideally you want to place world record levels at/near a high result from +5 modifier/ +6 proficiency, representing the best in the world.

Huh. We find it matters quite a bit in our games.

Movement will almost certainly matter a lot, and this is hardly an unusual layout for our games.

This is the case in our games as well. Unless the area is cramped/confined, there should be a lot of options to move and adjust to the flow of combat. This is particularly important to ranged attackers who want to avoid the +2 cover bonus your allies are likely going to provide. Terrain can be a valuable ally or a major pain, so movement in and around them can be useful/necessary. You example showed many options of moving towards the enemy, plus the potential hidden enemies you mentioned.

I would like to comment about Attacks of Opportunity (or Opportunity Attacks, whatever term 5E uses). Too many players fear them far more than they should. Unless you're concentrating on a spell or facing one of the largest singe attack damage dealers (such as dragons and giants), taking the attack if often worth it to move into a better position. I take the attacks all the time, and it seldom makes any real difference, even if I get hit for some damage. At low levels any amount of damage is potentially deadly, but once you hit level 4+ you should be fine.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have to agree. Movement rates have no meaning once combat begins. According to the PHB, "In combat, characters and Monsters are in constant motion, often using Movement and Position to gain the upper hand."

Excuse me?

Unless you use optional flanking rules, it's Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots because no one wants to either risk an OA or burn an action to disengage to avoid the OA.

Man we play super differently.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Combat movement speeds are the distance at which you can move shifting directions and starting and stopping at will over the course of 6 seconds. Giving some bonus movement for people who have already moved the whole turn using dash in a fairly straight line might be fair, certainly for people who did the same the prior turn and start the new one at full speed, but it seems like a needless complication with rare benefit. I would accept it as an argument for the DM to allow someone an athletics check to get some extra movement when the situation merits.

What this does draw my attention to is the fact that people tend to extrapolate the "speed" intended as combat movement to all other forms of movement and that building the rules for, say, overland travel more intuitively around the speeds on folks' character sheets would be advisable.

 

[aco175]

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...

You forget, I do not need to outrun the bear, only the fighter in plate mail, or the mage who cannot run.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Man we play super differently.

Indeed. I see this complaint about 5e combat being extremely stationary on this forum from time to time, and it has never really been by experience at any table.

 

[jayoungr]

Isn't this what the Mobile feat is for?

 

[Backcountry164]

The recent thread on Chases got me thinking about a pet peeve of mine in 5E: movement or speed.

I know 5E is designed with the idea of rules that are as simple as possible and at least can represent what they are supposed to cover. The idea of being able to move during a round and having your speed used is reasonable in 5E, so this isn't a thread-bash against 5E in that respect.

But, in the spirit of the chase, there should be a way to get more "speed" out of movement. Having a simple rule for things like sprinting in a contest would be nice. However, we still want to keep things relatively simple.

For a point of comparison, I did track and field in high school and college. I was never fast like a lot of people, but I was ok and a good support to help fill out the field, so to say. My personal bests were:

100-meter: 11.5 seconds (equates to speed of 85.6 using both a move and dash action over 2 rounds)
1/4-mile: 52.5 seconds (equates to speed of 75.4 using both a move and dash action over 9 rounds)
mile: 4 minutes, 53 seconds (equates to speed of 54.1 using both a move and dash action over 49 rounds)
10K (just over 6.2 miles): 42.5 minutes (equates to a speed of 38.6 using both a move and dash action over 425 rounds)

Quick question, how much adventuring gear did you wear/carry as you ran track and field?? Based upon all the extra weight an average adventurer would be expected to carry I'd say your numbers look about right...

 

[jmartkdr2]

Indeed. I see this complaint about 5e combat being extremely stationary on this forum from time to time, and it has never really been by experience at any table.

It's entirely unimportant if here's no where worth going or reason not to stay where you are. If the terrain is varied and both the pcs and npcs use area effects, people move all the time. If the rooms are empty and everyone just attacks, everyone stands still.

Having said that, I agree allowing Athletics checks to run extra fast is a good idea.